Educational websites

Educational Websites > Environmental Studies > Science

Developing Informed Attitudes | Earth And Space | Energy And Forces | Living Things And The Processes Of Life |

ABPI resources for schools
Interactive and downloadable resources from The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry for primary and secondary school teachers and pupils. It covers science, business studies, physical education (PE), design and technology, PSHE and history topics.

All about animals
All About Animals is an online pictorial database designed for pupils at the lower primary stage. It has information on 65 animals from ten different habitats. Each of the colourful illustrations can be downloaded, and each animal is accompanied by a short factsheet.

Association for Science Education
The website of ASE, a UK-based organisation that exists to improve the teaching of science. It contains details about ASE events, local branches and publications.

BBC Schools Science clips
A rich collection of interactive science activities suitable for lower to upper primary pupils and covering topics such as electricity, forces and movement, biology, light and sound. Each activity is accompanied by teacher's materials.

BBC Science and Nature
A BBC website devoted to the natural world, also featuring games, puzzles and links to television programmes.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) pages for schools provide online and downloadable teaching resources for primary teachers. Topics covered include plants and minibeasts.

Engineering Interact
Engineering Interact, produced at the University of Cambridge, contains detailed online learning activities for children aged 9-11 on the topics of light, sound, earth and space, electricity and forces and motion.

Exploratorium - Explore
Part of The museum of science, art and human perception (a US museum) website, this section contains interactive features, and a collection of hands-on science experiments of varying degrees of difficulty.

Galaxy H
Developed for the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills, Galaxy-H is aimed at pupils aged 7-11 years. The site covers a range of health topics from personal hygiene to healthy eating. There are teacher's notes to accompany the online activities.

How stuff works
A website which explains, in an accessible way, the processes behind a wide variety of things, from how a mobile phone works to the structure of the United Nations.

Improving Science Education 5-14
Website to help teachers with 5-14 science lessons with direct links to featured websites and a planning spreadsheet. The site has ideas, examples of lessons, downloadable resources and website links organised by attainment level in the 5-14 Environmental Studies Guidelines.

Leonardo da Vinci
A website from the Museum of Science in Boston about Leonardo da Vinci. His work as an inventor and scientist as well as an artist is considered. The site includes games and multimedia sections.

Lifebytes
This Health Education Authority website for children aged 11-14 covers topics such as healthy eating, sex, relationships and emotional health.

MBGnet biomes of the world
This site, produced by the Missouri Botanical Garden, gives good, clear information on the different climatic zones and ecosystems of the world and shows how some plants adapt to their environments.

Met Office Education resources
The UK Met Office's education pages. Its printable information pages explain many aspects of weather and weather forecasting. Pupils can test themselves on what they have learned using online quizzes, and there are downloadable lesson plans for teachers.

Photos of the lunar eclipse on March 3 2007
The photo-sharing website Flickr has a folder of photos of the lunar eclipse of March 3 2007. Many of the photos are available for educational use. (The folder has links to other non-scientific images).

Planet SciCast
A website, produced by the Planet Science team, which aims to create a huge video database of scientific experiments through a competition inviting pupils, teachers, scientists and anyone else to send in their own mini-movies.

Planet Science
Planet Science is aimed at developing young people's interest in science. Providing resources and information for teachers, to encourage creative and fun approaches to primary and secondary science teaching.

Planet science - Get Clobbered!
This interactive games website from Planet Science makes health and safety fun! The aim is to get your character ‘clobbered up’ in the correct gear for performing a variety of scientific jobs. Are safety goggles required? What about a hard hat? Latex gloves? The choices will roll past you on the squeaky conveyor belt, and all you need to do is select what you need. It might sound easy, but it’s harder than it seems.

Prehistoric Life
A BBC website that provides a wide range of information on dinosaurs and cavemen, including material from BBC TV and radio series.

Real Science teaching resources
Classroom resources for teaching science developed from topical science stories in the news. The downloadable resources include activities that develop understanding, support group work and guide pupils to explore the issues - scientific, ethical, environmental - raised by the latest research. There are also links to related ideas, lesson plans for teachers and online activities for pupils.

Recycle City
A US Environmental Agency website on recycling, designed for young people. It includes an interactive game called 'Dumptown', in which players must choose and monitor the success and cost-effectiveness of different methods of recycling.

Rolls Royce Science Prize
The Rolls-Royce Science Prize recognises excellence in science teaching in all its forms in three age categories: 3-11, 11-16 and 16-19. It offers financial support to small teams led by teachers who can demonstrate how an aspect of science teaching can be improved in their school or college. Examples of successful projects are included on the website.

Schools' Global Footprint
An interactive online resource developed in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund to help learners understand environmental impact by working out ecological footprints for themselves and their schools. Worksheets and curriculum-based ideas are included to help teachers make the most of the resource.

Science Live
Science Live is the online guide to science presenters and outreach shows. It has been designed to assist teachers and youth group to arrange classroom visits from science presenters. It can be searched by topics and location.

Science news for kids
This US-based website contains topical and up-to-date science news stories from around the specially written for young people.

Scottish Woodlands
Scottish Woodlands is a BBC education site aimed at ages 5 to 7. Using flash animations it explains about the parts of a tree, how the seasons affect trees, and some of the wildlife that lives in woodlands.

Seeing science
Experiment based lesson plans and resources for teaching science topics for the lower secondary stages. Topics include the solar system, light and plant life.

It must be emphasised that inclusion of these web links does not in any way represent endorsement by Learning and Teaching Scotland, nor are we responsible for the content of external websites.